Quote

Trane was the perfect saxophonist for Monk's music because of the space that Monk always used. Trane could fill up all that space with all them chords and sounds he was playing then.

Miles Davis

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Miles Davis
Age: 65 †
Born: 1926
Born: May 26
Died: 1991
Died: September 28
Actor
Autobiographer
Bandleader
Composer
Conductor
Film Score Composer
Jazz Musician
Musician
Recording Artist
Songwriter
Television Actor
Alton
Illinois
Miles Dewey Davis III
Miles Dewey Davis
III Davis
Sounds
Always
Jazz
Playing
Space
Sound
Saxophonist
Monk
Perfect
Chords
Used
Fill
Music

More quotes by Miles Davis

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Maybe you play a melody twice. You play it once like you like it, and some parts that you don't like you can just switch. An eight-bar motive - you can just take it and put it in the front or back or something like that. It can save you 50 or 60 or 70,000 dollars, a drum machine. That's why everybody uses it.
Miles Davis
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What's swinging in words? If a guy makes you pat your foot and if you feel it down your back, you don't have to ask anybody if that's good music or not. You can always feel it.
Miles Davis
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You know why I quit playing ballads? Cause I love playing ballads.
Miles Davis
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Jazz is like blues with a shot of heroin!
Miles Davis
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Sometimes, if you ask people to go downstairs and get me this or that, they'll say, It's rainin or It might rain, or There's some bumpy roads on the road, or bla-bla-bla. They give you all those excuses, so when they do something which is easy, you're supposed to say, Damn, you did that?
Miles Davis
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I said to [Lionel] Richie, Man, my wife says you must really respect women because you write such beautiful love songs.
Miles Davis
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As long as I've been playing, they never say I done anything. They always say that some white guy did it.
Miles Davis
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If you had to call it unison, it ain't unison. It ain't the same as somebody else. If you can hear that it's unison, and you have to name it something other than unison, it ain't unison, you know what I mean? It's two guys playin', but one guy is playin' slightly out of tune, one is playin' slightly off meter.
Miles Davis
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When we edit the music, I always remember, It's my band. Save me a place to play.
Miles Davis
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In music, silence is more important than sound.
Miles Davis
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If you don't know what to play, play nothing.
Miles Davis
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He sounded to me like he's supposed to be the savior of jazz. Sometimes people speak as though someone asked them a question. Well, no one asked him a question.
Miles Davis
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I keep telling Ron Lorman and them in the control room, It's my band! The reason I have a band is because I can't stand for somebody to tell me what to do.
Miles Davis
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I usually write from the rhythm section...If a drummer got a funky beat on some things - like a half-shuffle or a shuffle or a backbeat that's even - I can write something.
Miles Davis
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Tom Jones is funny to me, man. I mean, he really tries to ape Ray Charles and Sammy Davis, you know. He's nice-looking he looks good doing it. I mean, if I was him, I'd do the same thing. If I was only thinking about making money.
Miles Davis
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You can tell whether a person plays well or not by the way he carries the instrument, whether it means something to him or not.
Miles Davis
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When I heard Coleman Hawkins, I learned to play ballads
Miles Davis
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You can't play anything on a horn that Louis Armstrong hasn't played
Miles Davis
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The reason [drummers] call things unison, and they sound unison, is because you actually play two different tempos . . . like you're a little sharp, or a little flat it's so slight that they call it unison, but it's not unison.
Miles Davis
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[Jazz musicians] feel comfortable with their clichés, you know.
Miles Davis